European Union efforts to agree a stance for global climate talks ran into trouble Thursday because of a rift between eastern and western member states over money. EU leaders hoped to agree at a two-day summit on a negotiating mandate for the talks in Copenhagen in December to find a successor to the Kyoto Protocol, the United Nations scheme for battling climate change which expires in 2012. Success in Copenhagen is likely to hinge on money. Developing nations say they will not sign up to tackling climate change unless they get enough funding from rich nations which caused the problem by fuelling their industries with oil, gas and coal and polluting the atmosphere. Europe's richer nations have accepted the demand, and EU leaders are preparing to endorse an estimate that developing nations will need about 100 billion euros ($147.4 billion) a year by 2020 to confront climate problems. Such money might be used to curb emissions from their dirtier industries, to develop drought-resistant crops or to find new sources of water as old ones dry up. But nine east European countries in the EU oppose paying too much, saying there is not much difference between the economic output of Romania, for example, and that of Beijing. Britain, Germany and the Netherlands resent some countries getting special treatment. EU leaders will seek to agree an acceptable way of protecting those nine member states, whose economies have been hit hard by the economic crisis. “Contributions from the EU and member states ... should be based on a comprehensive global distribution key,” the EU's Swedish presidency said in a compromise proposal. “Should the application of such a key lead to a disproportionate burden on less prosperous member states, an adjustment should be made taking into account those member states' ability to pay,” it added. But the nine were not placated by the compromise text. “The burden-sharing proposal is not acceptable in its current form,” Hungarian Prime Minister Gordon Bajnai told a news conference. Leaders were also divided over the wisdom of showing the EU's negotiating hand so soon before Copenhagen. “For tactical reasons some of my colleagues think we should keep our wallet in the pocket for some time,” Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen told reporters. “I disagree and I really truly hope we will be able to make an agreement here in Brussels about concrete figures.” A further source of discord between east and west also emerged over how to treat carbon emissions permits issued under the Kyoto Protocol once it expires in 2012. The eastern European states, Russia and Ukraine hold spare permits for about 9 billion tons of carbon emissions, which were left over after their economies collapsed following the end of communist rule. The spare permits, known as AAUs, can be sold to big polluters such as Japan about 10 euros each, generating hundreds of millions of euros in total, with Ukraine and the Czech Republic the biggest sellers so far. The eastern European countries want to keep on selling AAUs under the new deal that replaces Kyoto, but critics say any more such deals will render the agreement ineffective and have dubbed them “hot air”. “Carrying over emissions rights through 2020 would result in an emissions decrease of only six percent total, in sharp contrast with the 25-40 percent reductions scientists say are required ... to avoid dangerous climate change,” said an analysis this week by Point Carbon consultancy.
